IM Normae: The Death Spiral of a Cataclysmic Variable?

Patterson, Joseph; Kemp, Jonathan; Monard, B.; Myers, Gordon; Miguel, Enrique de; Hambsch, Franz-Josef; Warhurst, Paul; Rea, Robert; Dvorak, Shawn; Menzies, Kenneth; Vanmunster, Tonny; Roberts, George; Campbell, Tut; Starkey, Donn R.; Ulowetz, Joseph; Rock, John; Seargeant, Jim; Boardman, James P.; Lemay, Damien; Cejudo, D.; Knigge, Christian

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/abec87

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…(2) A further constraint comes from the quiescent magnitudes with extinction corrections, 𝑉 𝑞,0 . This uses my earlier result that novae in quiescence almost always have an absolute magnitude more-luminous than +5 mag (Schaefer 2018; see also Patterson et al 2022). So any nova appearing with 𝑉 𝑞,0 >19.5 is unlikely to be in the disc population.…”

Section: Distances To Bulge Novaesupporting

confidence: 64%

Comprehensive catalogue of the overall best distances and properties of 402 galactic novae

Schaefer

2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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I derive the overall best distances for all 402 known galactic novae, and I collect their many properties. The centrepiece is the 74 novae with accurate parallaxes from the new Gaia data release. For the needed priors, I have collected 171 distances based on old methods (including expansion parallaxes and extinction distances). Further, I have collected the V-magnitudes at peak and the extinction measures, so as to produce absolute magnitudes at peak and then derive a crude distance as a prior. Further, I have recognized that 41 per cent of the known novae are concentrated in the bulge, with 68 per cent of these <5.4○ from the galactic centre, so the 165 bulge novae must have distances of 8000±750 parsecs. Putting this all together, I have derived distances to all 402 novae, of which 220 have distances to an accuracy of better than 30 per cent. I find that the disc novae have an exponential scale height of 140±10 pc. The average peak absolute V-magnitude is -7.45, with an RMS scatter of 1.33 mag. These peak luminosities are significantly correlated with the decline rate (t3 in days) as MV, peak = −7.6 + 1.5log (t3/30). The huge scatter about this relation masks the correlation in many smaller datasets, and makes this relation useless for physical models. The bulge novae are indistinguishable from the disc novae in all properties, except that the novae with red giant companion stars have a strong preference for residing in the bulge population.

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Section: Distances To Bulge Novaesupporting

confidence: 64%

Comprehensive catalogue of the overall best distances and properties of 402 galactic novae

Schaefer

2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…In a recent study of supersoft binaries and recurrent novae of particularly high quiescent luminosity (M V = +3 or brighter), we found a characteristic pattern: a double-humped orbital light curve and a rapidly increasing orbital period (Patterson et al 2022). We ascribed the three defining characteristics (high luminosity, intrinsically blue color, and increasing P orb ) to one cause: a particularly high and prolonged accretion rate (∼10 −7 M ☉ yr −1 ).…”

Section: The Orbital Light Curve Revisitedmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…One is T Pyx, whose period lengthened by 0.005% in its 2011 outburst (see Figures 6-7 of Patterson et al 2017). Other good candidates are described by Schaefer (2020) and Patterson et al (2022).…”

Section: The Orbital Signalmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Periodic Signals of Nova V1674 Herculis (2021)

Patterson

Enenstein

Miguel

et al. 2022

ApJL

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We present time-series photometry during the early decline phase of the extremely fast nova V1674 Herculis. The 2021 light curve showed periodic signals at 0.152921(3) days and 501.486(5) s, which we interpret as respectively the orbital and white dwarf spin periods in the underlying binary. We also detected a sideband signal at the difference frequency between these two clocks. During the first 15 days of outburst, the spin period appears to have increased by 0.014(1)%. This increase probably arose from the sudden loss of high-angular-momentum gas (“the nova explosion”) from the rotating, magnetic white dwarf. Both periodic signals appeared remarkably early in the outburst, which we attribute to the extreme speed with which the nova evolved (and became transparent to radiation from the inner binary). After that very fast initial period increase of 71 ms, the period subsequently decreased—at 182(18) ms yr−1 in 2021, and 88(18) ms yr−1 in 2022. These rates are ∼100× faster than typically seen in intermediate polars. This could be due to high accretion torques from very high mass-transfer rates, which might be common when low-mass donor stars are strongly irradiated by a nova outburst.

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“…Another RN with P orb 2 . 4 h -IM Normae -appears to be a near twin of T Pyx (Schaefer 2010 ;Patterson et al 2022 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

“…A promising way to account for the abnormally high accretion rates in these systems is wind-driven mass transfer (Knigge, King MNRAS 514, 1895-1907(2022 & Patterson 2000 ). Since the donor star is strongly irradiated, a po werful outflo w is expected to be driven from its surface.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A triple star origin for T Pyx and other short-period recurrent novae

Knigge

Toonen

Boekholt³

2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Recurrent novae are star systems in which a massive white dwarf accretes material at such a high rate that it undergoes thermonuclear runaways every 1 - 100 years. They are the only class of novae in which the white dwarf can grow in mass, making some of these systems strong Type Ia supernova progenitor candidates. Almost all known recurrent novae are long-period (Porb ≳ 12 hrs) binary systems in which the requisite mass supply rate can be provided by an evolved (sub-)giant donor star. However, at least two recurrent novae are short-period (Porb ≲ 3 hrs) binaries in which mass transfer would normally be driven by gravitational radiation at rates 3-4 orders of magnitude smaller than required. Here, we show that the prototype of this class – T Pyxidis – has a distant proper motion companion and therefore likely evolved from a hierarchical triple star system. Triple evolution can naturally produce exotic compact binaries as a result of three-body dynamics, either by Kozai-Lidov eccentricity cycles in dynamically stable systems or via mass-loss-induced dynamical instabilities. By numerically evolving triple progenitors with physically reasonable parameters forward in time, we show explicitly that the inner binary can become so eccentric that mass transfer is triggered at periastron, driving the secondary out of thermal equilibrium. We suggest that short-period recurrent novae likely evolved via this extreme state, explaining their departure from standard binary evolution tracks.

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IM Normae: The Death Spiral of a Cataclysmic Variable?

Cited by 9 publications

References 56 publications

Comprehensive catalogue of the overall best distances and properties of 402 galactic novae

Comprehensive catalogue of the overall best distances and properties of 402 galactic novae

The Periodic Signals of Nova V1674 Herculis (2021)

A triple star origin for T Pyx and other short-period recurrent novae

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